The use of call centers to centrally manage customer contact for a company has become more prevalent in recent decades. Call centers are used for various purposes, e.g., acquiring contracts, accepting orders and contracts, technical support, complaint management, emergency services, opinion research, disclosure, and information, to name just a few. For the purposes of this application, employees of a call center in contact with the customer are called agents. The call center agents generally have a workstation and a headset. The connection to the telephone network is established using a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Increasingly, calls are also connected via the Internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
For example, in the case of a service hotline, it is common for a customer to have to call multiple times before a problem (“incident”) can be solved. In many cases, it is even known in advance/anticipated that subsequent calls will be necessary. In such cases it is desirable—at least from the customer's perspective—for these calls to be directed to the hotline employee (agent) to whom the incident was reported during the first call. Since this agent knows the history and can resume the process seamlessly, the most effective help can be expected. This ideal situation cannot always be implemented optimally.
Optimal call distribution is very important for the operator of a call center to balance customer satisfaction and cost-effectiveness (utilization). One means to improve efficiency is Interactive Voice Response (IVR). This has the customer navigate through a series of IVR queries (either voice or numerical input) until he or she reaches the desired department. The customer will often be connected to the next available agent. This is the same for every call, regardless of whether it is the very first call or a follow-up call. This means that the customer will usually end up with a different agent than the initial agent with whom he or she spoke. The customer will then have to re-explain who he or she is, provide the customer number, etc., and explain the issue again. For complex incidents that are not fully resolved initially, the randomly connected agent might attempt to connect the customer with the agent that previously handled the incident. However, since this agent is frequently speaking to another customer, this can delay considerably the whole process, decreasing efficiency, and not least, it can leave the customer with a negative impression of the experience.
Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) can improve the process. The customer is identified using the incoming telephone number or by having the customer enter the account number or a PIN in the IVR system. This allows the customer history to be displayed on the agent's monitor at the start of the conversation. The agent thus has knowledge of the incidents that the caller has already discussed with other employees, and does not have to ask the customer about them again, or consult with the other agent(s). This speeds up the process considerably (time savings). The perceived service quality, however, is dependent on the documented history—ultimately the fields that were filled out by the supervisor or project manager. It also takes time for the newly connected agents to get a picture of the customer history.
It would be favorable to always reach the same agent when handling an incident, or at least a proxy, who will then have the same access to the documentation on the incident.
However, one significant constraint makes this hard to implement: namely, it is often undesirable for an agent to be called directly at will, which is why his or her personal contact data (telephone number/extension) is not (or may not) shared with the caller. The opposite can also occur, i.e., the caller would like to remain anonymous. Examples of this include crisis hotlines and the police (e.g., emergency call hotlines). Applications like crisis hotlines can even require both sides to remain anonymous. Police applications could include a witness who wants to remain anonymous, but would like to provide information on an open case, and who would like to always be connected directly to his or her contact without having to remember a special number. Special solutions can also fail when callers frequently contact the call center using a variety of different devices (landline phone, pay phone, cell phone, PDA, PC, etc.).